Standard Tibetan

Standard Tibetan[note 2] is a widely

spoken form of the Tibetic languages
that has many commonalities with the
speech of Lhasa, an Ü-Tsang (Central
Tibetan) dialect. For this reason,
Standard Tibetan is often called Lhasa
Tibetan.[note 3] Tibetan is an official[note 4]
language of the Tibet Autonomous
Region of the People's Republic of China.
The written language is based on
Classical Tibetan and is highly
conservative.
 Standard Tibetan

བ ོད་ ད་, Bod skad / Böké

་སའི ་ ད་, Lha-sa'i skad / Lhaséké
Native to India, Nepal, Tibet
(Western China)
Region Tibet Autonomous
Region, Kham
Native speakers (1.2 million cited 1990
census)[1]
Language family Sino-Tibetan
Tibeto-Kanauri ?
Bodish
Tibetic
Central Tibetan
Standard
Tibetan
Early forms Old Tibetan
Classical Tibetan
Writing system Tibetan alphabet
Tibetan Braille
Official status
Official language in Nepal (Upper
Mustang)
China (Tibet
Autonomous Region)
Regulated by Committee for the
Standardisation of the
Tibetan
Language[note 1]

Language codes
ISO 639-1 bo
ISO 639-2 tib (B)
bod (T)
ISO 639-3 bod
Glottolog tibe1272 [2]

Linguasphere 70-AAA-ac
 This article contains Tibetan script.
Without proper rendering support, you
may see very small fonts, misplaced
vowels or missing conjuncts instead of
Tibetan characters.

Registers
Like many languages, Standard Tibetan
has a variety of language registers:

Phal-skad ("demotic language"): the

vernacular speech.
Zhe-sa ("polite respectful speech"): the
formal spoken style, particularly
prominent in Lhasa.
 Chos-skad ("religious {or book}
language"): the literary style in which
the scriptures and other classical
works are written.[3]

Grammar
Syntax and word order

Tibetan is an ergative language.

Grammatical constituents broadly have
head-final word order:

adjectives generally follow nouns in

Tibetan, unless the two are linked by a
genitive particle
objects and adverbs precede the verb,
as do adjectives in copular clauses
 a noun marked with the genitive case
precedes the noun which it modifies
demonstratives and numerals follow
the noun they modify

Numerals

Stone tablets with prayers in Tibetan at a Temple in

McLeod Ganj

Pejas, scriptures of Tibetan Buddhism, at a library in

Dharamsala, India
Dharamsala, India

Unlike many other languages of East

Asia and especially Chinese, another
Sino-Tibetan language, there are no
numeral auxiliaries or measure words
used in counting in Tibetan although
words expressive of a collective or
integral are often used after the tens,
sometimes after a smaller number.[3]

In scientific and astrological works, the

numerals, as in Vedic Sanskrit, are
expressed by symbolical words.[3]

Tibetan Numerals ༠༡༢༣༤༥༦༧༨༩

Hindu-Arabic numerals 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Writing system
Tibetan is written with an Indic script,
with a historically conservative
orthography that reflects Old Tibetan
phonology and helps unify the Tibetan-
language area. It is also helpful in
reconstructing Proto Sino-Tibetan and
Old Chinese.

Wylie transliteration is the most common

system of romanization used by Western
scholars in rendering written Tibetan
using the Latin alphabet (such as
employed on much of this page). Tibetan
pinyin, however, is the official
romanization system employed by the
government of the People's Republic of
China. Certain names may also retain
irregular transcriptions, such as
Chomolungma for Mount Everest.

Phonology of modern Lhasa

Tibetan
The following summarizes the sound
system of the dialect of Tibetan spoken
in Lhasa, the most influential variety of
the spoken language.

Vowels

Tournadre and Sangda Dorje describe

eight vowels in the standard language:
 Front Back

unrounded rounded rounded

Close i y u

Close-mid e ø o

Open-mid ɛ

Open a

Three additional vowels are sometimes

described as significantly distinct: [ʌ] or
[ə], which is normally an allophone of /a/;
[ɔ], which is normally an allophone of /o/;
and [ɛ̈] (an unrounded, centralised, mid
front vowel), which is normally an
allophone of /e/. These sounds normally
occur in closed syllables; because
Tibetan does not allow geminated
consonants, there are cases in which one
syllable ends with the same sound as the
one following it. The result is that the
first is pronounced as an open syllable
but retains the vowel typical of a closed
syllable. For instance, zhabs (foot) is
pronounced [ɕʌp] and pad (borrowing
from Sanskrit padma, lotus) is
pronounced [pɛʔ], but the compound
word, zhabs pad is pronounced [ɕʌpɛʔ].
This process can result in minimal pairs
involving sounds that are otherwise
allophones.

Sources vary on whether the [ɛ̈] phone

(resulting from /e/ in a closed syllable)
and the [ɛ] phone (resulting from /a/
through the i-mutation) are distinct or
basically identical.

Phonemic vowel length exists in Lhasa

Tibet but in a restricted set of
circumstances. Assimilation of Classical
Tibetan's suffixes, normally ‘i (འི ་), at the
end of a word produces a long vowel in
Lhasa Tibetan; the feature is sometimes
omitted in phonetic transcriptions. In
normal spoken pronunciation, a
lengthening of the vowel is also
frequently substituted for the sounds [r]
and [l] when they occur at the end of a
syllable.

The vowels /i/, /y/, /e/, /ø/, and /ɛ/ each

have nasalized forms: /ĩ/, /ỹ/, /ẽ/, /ø̃ /,
and /ɛ̃/, respectively, which historically
results from /in/, /en/, etc. In some
unusual cases, the vowels /a/, /u/, and
/o/ may also be nasalised.
Tones

The Lhasa dialect is usually described as

having two tones: high and low. However,
in monosyllabic words, each tone can
occur with two distinct contours. The
high tone can be pronounced with either
a flat or a falling contour, and the low
tone can be pronounced with either a flat
or rising-falling contour, the latter being a
tone that rises to a medium level before
falling again. It is normally safe to
distinguish only between the two tones
because there are very few minimal pairs
that differ only because of contour. The
difference occurs only in certain words
ending in the sounds [m] or [ŋ]; for
instance, the word kham (Tibetan: ཁམ་,
"piece") is pronounced [kʰám] with a high
flat tone, whereas the word Khams
(Tibetan: ཁམས་, "the Kham region") is
pronounced [kʰâm] with a high falling
tone.

In polysyllabic words, tone is not

important except in the first syllable. This
means that from the point of view of
phonological typology, Tibetan could
more accurately be described as a pitch-
accent language than a true tone
language, in which all syllables in a word
can carry their own tone.

Consonants
 Alveolar Palatal Velar
Bilabial Retroflex
plain sibilant plain sibilant labial plain labial

Nasal m n ɲ ŋ

aspirated pʰ tʰ tsʰ ʈʰ ~ ʈʂʰ cʰ tɕʰ kʰ

Stop/Affricate
unaspirated p t ts ʈ ~ ʈʂ c tɕ k

Fricative s ʂ ɕ

voiceless ɹ̥
central
voiced ɹ j ɥ w
Approximant
voiceless l̥
lateral
voiced l ʎ

The unaspirated stops /p/, /t/, /c/, and

/k/ typically become voiced in the low
tone and are pronounced [b], [d], [ɟ], and
[ɡ], respectively. The sounds are regarded
as allophones. Similarly, the aspirated
stops [pʰ], [tʰ], [cʰ], and [kʰ] are typically
lightly aspirated in the low tone. The
dialect of the upper social strata in Lhasa
does not use voiced stops in the low
tone.
1. The alveolar trill ([r]) is in
complementary distribution of the
alveolar approximant [ɹ]; therefore,
both are treated as one phoneme.
2. The voiceless alveolar lateral
approximant [l ̥] resembles the
voiceless alveolar lateral fricative [ɬ]
found in languages such as Welsh
and Zulu and is sometimes
transcribed ⟨ɬ⟩.
3. The consonants /m/, /ŋ/, /p/, /r/, /l/,
and /k/ may appear in syllable-final
positions. The Classical Tibetan
final /n/ is still present, but its
modern pronunciation is normally
realized as a nasalisation of the
preceding vowel, rather than as a
discrete consonant (see above).
However, /k/ is not pronounced in
the final position of a word except in
very formal speech. Also, syllable-
final /r/ and /l/ are often not clearly
pronounced but realized as a
lengthening of the preceding vowel.
The phonemic glottal stop /ʔ/
appears only at the end of words in
the place of /s/, /t/, or /k/, which
were pronounced in Classical
Tibetan but have since been elided.
For instance, the word for Tibet
itself was Bod in Classical Tibetan
but is now pronounced [pʰø̀ ʔ] in the
Lhasa dialect.
Verbal system
The standard Tibetan verbal system
distinguishes four tenses and three
evidential moods.[4]

Future Present Past Perfect

Personal V-gi-yin V-gi-yod V-pa-yin / byuṅ V-yod

Factual V-gi-red V-gi-yod-pa-red V-pa-red V-yod-pa-red

Testimonial ------- V-gi-ḥdug V-soṅ V-bźag

The three moods may all occur with all

three grammatical persons, though early
descriptions associated the personal
modal category with European first-
person agreement.[5]

Counting system
Standard Tibetan has a base-10 counting
system.[6] The basic units of the counting
system of Standard Tibetan is given in
the table below in both the Tibetan script
and a Romanisation for those unfamiliar
with Written Tibetan.
Written Tibetan Arabic Written Tibetan Arabic Written Tibetan Arabic

Tibetan (Roman) numerals Tibetan (Roman) numerals Tibetan (Roman) numerals

ཉི་ ་ ་ nyishu བཞི ་

གཅི ག་ chig 1 21 zhi kya 400
གཅི ག་ tsa ji བ ་
ཉི་ ་ nyishu
གཉིས་ nyi 2 22 ་བ ་ nyi kya 500
གཉིས་ tsa nyi
ཉི་ ་ nyishu
ག མ་ sum 3 23 ག་བ ་ drug kya 600
ག མ་ tsa sum
ཉི་ ་ nyishu བ ན་
བཞི ་ zhi 4 24 dün kya 700
བཞི ་ tsa zhi བ ་
ཉི་ ་ ་ nyishu བ ད་
་ nga 5 25 kyed kya 800
་ tsa nga བ ་

ཉི་ ་ nyishu
ག་ drug 6 26 ད ་བ ་ ku kya 900
ག་ tsa drug

ཉི་ ་ nyishu chig

བ ན་ dün 7 27 ཆི ག་ ོང་ 1000
བ ན་ tsa dün tong

ཉི་ ་ nyishu
བ ད་ gyed 8 28
བ ད་ tsa gyed

ཉི་ ་ nyishu
ད ་ gu 9 29
ད ་ tsa gu

མ་ ་ sum cu
བ ་ chu 10 མ་ sum cu 30 31
ས ོ་གཅི ག so chig
བ ་ བཞི ་ ་ ship cu
chugchig 11 བཞི ་བ ship cu 40 41
གཅི ག་ ཞེ ་གཅི ག she chig

བ ་ ་བ ་ ngap cu
chunyi 12 ་བ ngap cu 50 51
གཉིས་ ང་གཅི ག nga chig
བ ་ ག་ ་ trug cu
choksum 13 trug cu 60 61
ག མ་ ག་ རེ ་གཅི ག re chig

བ ན་ ་ dün cu
བ ་
chushi 14 བ ན་ dün cu 70 དན་
ོ dhon 71
བཞི ་
གཅི ག chig

བ ད་ ་ gyed cu
བཅ ོ་ ་ chonga 15 བ ད་ gyed cu 80 81
་གཅི ག gya chig

བ ་ ད ་བ ་ gup cu
chudrug 16 ད ་བ gup cu 90 91
ག་ ག ོ་གཅི ག go chig
བ ་ བ ་དང་ kya tang
chubdun 17 བ ་ kya 100 101
བ ན་ གཅི ག chig

བཅ ོ་ ་དང་ kya tang

chobgyed 18 150
བ ད་ ་བ ་ ngap cu

བ ་
chudgu 19 ཉིས་བ ་ nyi kya 200
ད ་
མ་
ཉི་ །་ nyishu 20 sum kya 300
བ ་

Scholarship
In the 18th and 19th centuries several
Western linguists arrived in Tibet:

The Capuchin friars who settled in

Lhasa for a quarter of century from
1719:[3]
Francesco della Penna, well
known from his accurate
description of Tibet,[3]
Cassian di Macerata sent home
materials which were used by the
Augustine friar Aug. Antonio
Georgi of Rimini (1711–1797) in
his Alphabetum Tibetanum (Rome,
1762, 4t0), a ponderous and
confused compilation, which may
be still referred to, but with great
caution.[3]
The Hungarian Sándor Kőrösi Csoma
(1784–1842), who published the first
Tibetan–European language dictionary
(Classical Tibetan and English in this
case) and grammar, Essay Towards a
Dictionary, Tibetan and English.
Heinrich August Jäschke of the
Moravian mission which was
established in Ladakh in 1857,[3]
Tibetan Grammar and A Tibetan–
English Dictionary.
At St Petersburg, Isaac Jacob Schmidt
published his Grammatik der
tibetischen Sprache in 1839 and his
Tibetisch-deutsches Wörterbuch in
1841. His access to Mongolian
sources had enabled him to enrich the
results of his labours with a certain
amount of information unknown to his
predecessors. His Tibetische Studien
(1851–1868) is a valuable collection of
documents and observations.[3]
In France, P. E. Foucaux published in
1847 a translation from the Rgya tcher
rol-pa, the Tibetan version of the Lalita
Vistara, and in 1858 a Grammaire
thibétaine.[3]
Ant. Schiefner of St Petersburg in 1849
his series of translations and
researches.[3]
Theos Casimir Bernard, a PhD scholar
of religion from Columbia University,
explorer and practitioner of Yoga and
Tibetan Buddhism, published, after his
1936/37 trip to India and Tibet, A
 Simplified Grammar of the Literary
Tibetan Language, 1946. See the
'Books' section.

Indian indologist and linguist Rahul

Sankrityayan wrote a Tibetan grammar in
Hindi. Some of his other works on
Tibetan were:

1. Tibbati Bal-Siksha, 1933

2. Pathavali (Vols. 1, 2, 3), 1933
3. Tibbati Vyakaran, 1933
4. Tibbat May Budh Dharm, 1948
Japanese linguist Kitamura Hajime
published a grammar and dictionary of
Lhasa Tibetan

Contemporary usage
In much of Tibet, primary education is
conducted either primarily or entirely in
the Tibetan language, and bilingual
education is rarely introduced before
students reach middle school. However,
Chinese is the language of instruction of
most Tibetan secondary schools.
Students who continue on to tertiary
education have the option of studying
humanistic disciplines in Tibetan at a
number of minority colleges in China.[7]
That contrasts with Tibetan schools in
Dharamsala, India, where the Ministry of
Human Resource Development
curriculum requires academic subjects to
be taught in English from middle
school.[8] Literacy and enrollment rates
continue to be the main concern of the
Chinese government. Much of the adult
population in Tibet remains illiterate, and
despite compulsory education policies,
many parents in rural areas are unable to
send their children to school.

In February 2008, Norman Baker, a UK

MP, released a statement to mark
International Mother Language Day
claiming, "The Chinese government are
following a deliberate policy of
extinguishing all that is Tibetan, including
their own language in their own country"
and he asserted a right for Tibetans to
express themselves "in their mother
tongue".[9] However, Tibetologist Elliot
Sperling has noted that "within certain
limits the PRC does make efforts to
accommodate Tibetan cultural
expression" and "the cultural activity
taking place all over the Tibetan plateau
cannot be ignored."[10]

Some scholars also question such

claims because most Tibetans continue
to reside in rural areas where Chinese is
rarely spoken, as opposed to Lhasa and
other Tibetan cities where Chinese can
often be heard. In the Texas Journal of
International Law, Barry Sautman stated
that "none of the many recent studies of
endangered languages deems Tibetan to
be imperiled, and language maintenance
among Tibetans contrasts with language
loss even in the remote areas of Western
states renowned for liberal policies...
claims that primary schools in Tibet
teach Mandarin are in error. Tibetan was
the main language of instruction in 98%
of TAR primary schools in 1996; today,
Mandarin is introduced in early grades
only in urban schools.... Because less
than four out of ten TAR Tibetans reach
secondary school, primary school
matters most for their cultural
formation."[11]

Recently, the Yushul Tibetan

Autonomous Prefecture Intermediate
People's Court sentenced Tashi
Wangchuk to 5 years in prison on 22 May
2018. " Part of the evidence used in the
Communist Chinese court was a New
York Times video entitled, Tashi
Wangchuk: A Tibetan’s Journey for
Justice' by Jonah M. Kessel. The
accompanying text states, "(...) To his
surprise, he could not find one, even
though nearly everyone living in this
market town on the Tibetan plateau here
is Tibetan. Officials had also ordered
other monasteries and a private school in
the area not to teach the language to
laypeople. And public schools had
dropped true bilingual education in
Chinese and Tibetan, teaching Tibetan
only in a single class, like a foreign
language, if they taught it at all. 'This
directly harms the culture of Tibetans,'
said Mr. Tashi, 30, a shopkeeper who is
trying to file a lawsuit to compel the
authorities to provide more Tibetan
education. Our people’s culture is fading
and being wiped out.' (...) "[12]

The most important Tibetan branch of

language under threat is, however, the
Ladakhi language of the Western Tibetan
group, in the Ladakh region of India. In
Leh, a slow but gradual process is
underway whereby the Tibetan
vernacular is being supplanted by English
and Hindi, and there are signs of a
gradual loss of Tibetan cultural identity in
the area. The adjacent Balti language is
also in severe danger, and unlike Ladakhi,
it has already been replaced by Urdu as
the main language of Baltistan,
particularly due to settlers speaking Urdu
from other areas moving to that area.

See also
Amdo Tibetan language
Khams Tibetan language
Languages of Bhutan
Voice of America- Tibetan Language
Service

Notes
1. Tibetan: བ ོད་ཡི ག་བ ་ཚད་ ན་ ་ ར་
བའི ་ལས་ད ོན་ ་ཡ ོན་ ན་ཁང་གི ས་
བ ི གས་, Wylie: bod yig brda tshad
ldan du sgyur ba'i las don u yon lhan
khang gis bsgrigs; Chinese: 藏语术语
标准化⼯作委员会
2. Tibetan: བ ོད་ ད་, Wylie: Bod skad,
THL: Böké, ZYPY: Pögä,
IPA: [pʰø̀ k˭ɛʔ]; also Tibetan: བ ོད་

ཡི ག་, Wylie: Bod yig, THL: Böyik,

ZYPY: Pöyig

3. Tibetan: ་སའི ་ ད་, Wylie: Lha-sa'i

skad, THL: Lhaséké, ZYPY: Lasägä
4. Local languages such as Tibetan
have official status "according to the
 provisions of the self-government
regulations for ethnic autonomous
areas" ("What is the right of self-
government of ethnic autonomous
areas?" Updated August 12, 2009).
With specific reference to the
Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR),
the use of Tibetan (no dialect
specified, taken to mean all dialects)
is given priority over the Han Chinese
language ("Fifty Years of
Democratic Reform in Tibet", official
Chinese government site, retrieved
October 15, 2010).

References
1. Standard Tibetan at Ethnologue
(18th ed., 2015)
2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel,
Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds.
(2017). "Tibetan" . Glottolog 3.0.
Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute
for the Science of Human History.
3. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Tibet"  .
Encyclopædia Britannica. 12 (11th
ed.). Cambridge University Press.
pp. 916–928.
4. Hill, Nathan W. (2013). "ḥdug as a
testimonial marker in Classical and
Old Tibetan" . Himalayan Linguistics.
12 (1): 2.
5. Hill, Nathan W. (2013). "Contextual
semantics of 'Lhasa' Tibetan
evidentials" . SKASE Journal of
Theoretical Linguistics. 10 (3): 47–
54.
6. Tournadre, Nicolas; Dorje, Sangda
(2003). Manual of Standard Tibetan:
Language and civilization . Ithaca,
N.Y.: Snow Lion Publications.
ISBN 1559391898. OCLC 53477676 .
7. Postiglione, Jiao and Gyatso.
"Education in Rural Tibet:
Development, Problems and
Adaptations". China: An International
Journal. Volume 3, Number 1, March
2005, pp. 1–23
 8. Maslak, Mary Ann. "School as a site
of Tibetan ethnic identity
construction in India". China: An
International Journal. Volume 60,
Number 1, February 2008, pp. 85–
106
9. "Report reveals determined Chinese
assault on Tibetan language" . Press
Release – 21st February 2008. Free
Tibet. Retrieved 7 February 2010.
10. Elliot Sperling, "Exile and Dissent:
The Historical and Cultural Context",
in TIBET SINCE 1950: SILENCE,
PRISON, OR EXILE 31–36 (Melissa
Harris & Sydney Jones eds., 2000).
11. Sautman, B. 2003. “Cultural
Genocide and Tibet,” Texas Journal
of International Law 38:2:173-246
12. Wong, Edward (2015-11-28).
"Tibetans Fight to Salvage Fading
Culture in China" . The New York
Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved
2019-03-19. "(...) To his surprise, he
could not find one, even though
nearly everyone living in this market
town on the Tibetan plateau here is
Tibetan. Officials had also ordered
other monasteries and a private
school in the area not to teach the
language to laypeople. And public
schools had dropped true bilingual
education in Chinese and Tibetan,
teaching Tibetan only in a single
class, like a foreign language, if they
taught it at all. 'This directly harms
the culture of Tibetans,' said Mr.
Tashi, 30, a shopkeeper who is trying
to file a lawsuit to compel the
authorities to provide more Tibetan
education. 'Our people’s culture is
fading and being wiped out.' (...)"
Further reading
Bernard, Theos C. (1946), A Simplified
Grammar of the Literary Tibetan
Language, Santa Barbara, California:
Tibetan Text Society.
Das, Sarat Chandra (1902), Tibetan–
English Dictionary (with Sanskrit
Synonyms) , Calcutta: Bengal
Secretariat Book Depot.. Reprinted by
Motilal Banarsidass, Dehli, ISBN 81-
208-1713-3.
Hodge, Stephen (2003), An Introduction
to Classical Tibetan, Orchid Press,
ISBN 974-524-039-7.
Jäschke, Heinrich August (2004), A
short practical grammar of the Tibetan
language, with special reference to the
spoken dialects, London: Hardinge
Simpole, ISBN 1-84382-077-3. " ...
contains a facsimile of the original
publication in manuscript, the first
printed version of 1883, and the later
Addenda published with the Third
Edition."—P. [4] of cover./ First edition
published in Kye-Lang in Brit. Lahoul by
the author, in manuscript, in 1865.
—— (1866). Romanized Tibetan and
English dictionary . Retrieved
2011-06-30.(Original from Oxford
University)
—— (1881). A Tibetan–English
dictionary, with special reference to the
prevailing dialects: To which is added
an English-Tibetan vocabulary .
London: Unger Brothers (T. Grimm).
—— (1883). Heinrich Wenzel (ed.).
Tibetan grammar . Trübner's collection
of simplified grammars. 7 (2nd ed.).
London: Trübner & co.
Kopp, Teresa Kunkel. 1998. Verbalizers
in Lhasa Tibetan. PhD dissertation,
University of Texas at Arlington.
Naga, Sangye Tandar. (2010). "Some
Reflections on the Mysterious Nature
of Tibetan Language" In: The Tibet
Journal, Special issue. Autumn 2009
vol XXXIV n. 3-Summer 2010 vol XXXV
 n. 2. "The Earth Ox Papers", edited by
Roberto Vitali, pp. 561–566.
Sandberg, Graham (1894). Hand-book
of colloquial Tibetan: A practical guide
to the language of Central Tibet .
Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co.(Original
from Harvard University)
Tournadre, Nicolas; Dorje, Sangda
(2003), Manual of Standard Tibetan,
New York: Snow Lion Publications,
ISBN 1-55939-189-8.
Hahn, Michael. “Foundational
Questions of Tibetan Morphology.” The
Tibet Journal, vol. 33, no. 2, 1 July
2008, pp. 3–19.

External links
 Wikibooks has a book on the topic
of: Research on Tibetan Languages:
A Bibliography

Tibetan edition of Wikipedia, the free

encyclopedia

Online Keyboard for Tibetan

Retrieved from
"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Standard_Tibetan&oldid=903948762"

Last edited 6 days ago by Bodbody

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